Social Housing Newsletter – Autumn 2018

Welcome to the Autumn edition of Clarke Willmott’s Social Housing sector newsletter

In her speech at the Conservative Party annual conference Theresa May acknowledged that despite the additional £2 billion announced last year for affordable housing, there are still not enough new homes being built to meet demand. Whilst the £9 billion Affordable Housing Programme has been opened-up to councils to encourage them to play their part, she used her speech to announce the scrapping of the government cap on how much councils can borrow against their Housing Revenue Account assets to fund new developments. Whilst this is to be welcomed, as always the devil will be in the detail and we will have to wait and see how effective it is, and the contribution it makes to solving the housing crisis.

Universal Credit continues to be one of the biggest talking points. Amidst the reports of increasing homelessness and use of foodbanks, the cross-party Commons work and pensions committee has called for the Universal Credit rollout to be put on hold until the DWP introduces measures to prevent claimants being driven into debt.

Our London Housing conference takes place on Thursday 8 November at Church House, Westminster. If you haven’t yet booked your place, we have a few places remaining.

The theme of the conference is ‘solutions not barriers to housing’ and our packed agenda will cover topics including the Green Paper, Post-Grenfell – a construction perspective, modular housing, getting residents connected (broadband), the essentials of TUPE, a housing management update and the government’s proposals to change leaseholds.